


HOAV Drabble: Nightmares

by lettalady, Spadesjade



Series: The Heart of a Villain [2]
Category: British Actor RPF, Jaguar "British Villains" Commercial
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4030885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettalady/pseuds/lettalady, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spadesjade/pseuds/Spadesjade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place about six months after Heart Of A Villain.  As Tom and Rose adjust to life away from London, Tom struggles to come to grips with his past traumas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	HOAV Drabble: Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of drabbles that will be written by Lettalady and myself about Tom, Rose, William (and eventually Hero) and their life after the end of Heart Of A Villain. More to come, mostly short, and order could be mixed. We'll be sure to say when it takes place. Enjoy!

Rose was awakened by a jerking sensation. She opened her eyes, groggy, disoriented, and felt it again. A shuddering of the mattress underneath her. She lay there for a moment, trying to figure out where it could be coming from -- was it an earthquake? No, too inconsistent. It felt like someone was...

She lifted her head and looked to where Tom lay. He was sprawled. The leg closest to her kicked at her, confirming her suspicion. His hands gripped at the duvet so tight they dug down into the sheets and the mattress cover. And he kept having these spasms, his head going from left to right, and his chest riding and falling so rapidly that she was instantly afraid he was having some mysterious medical attack.

Sitting up, Rose leaned over him, careful not to let his flailing knock into her. His eyes were scrunched tight, and his hair was drenched with sweat. The muscles in his shoulders, arms and chest were utterly rigid.

A night terror? It was the only explanation. She had never, not in all the years she'd known Tom, ever seen anything like this from him. But things were so different now...

He gave a great wrench of his whole body, lifting himself nearly a foot off the bed, shaking the mattress underneath them. When he dropped, his head came up and his eyes flew open.

"ROSE!"

The shout made her jump. Then she leaned forward and clutched Tom's shoulder, digging her fingertips hard into him, trying to drag him back down to Earth.

"Here!" she said. "I'm here!"

He sat up, panting. His muscles were twitching, one hand went through the sopping mess of his hair to push it away from his high, white brow. "And William?"

"Asleep in his bed," Rose assured him. 

Tom nodded, and, inexplicably, he reached out and grabbed her. His hands caught her under her arms and lifted her like a child, dragging her entirely to him, placing her in his lap. She scrambled to adjust, settling her arms over his and then winding them around his neck as he pulled her flush against his chest, hands spread wide to press her as close as he could. His head dropped down, cradled against her breasts. 

For a long time, Rose just let him hold her. His heartbeat, so rapid at first, very slowly started to return to a more normal rate. She ran her fingers through the back of his hair, kissed the bare skin of his back and shoulders anywhere she could reach it, and murmured things like, "It's okay, I'm here," and "shhh," over and over. His breathing slowed, and the sweat started to dry, and finally, finally, he turned his head and pressed a kiss into her clavicle. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Why?" she countered, soothingly. "You didn't do anything wrong."

He sighed, lifting his head to look at her. Even in his lap, he was still a bit taller than her, his nose brushing against her temple. He cupped her cheek and kissed the bridge of her nose, high almost to her eyebrows, running the tip of his very straight, pointed nose along the lines of her forehead. "Yes, I have," he said, his voice ragged.

She pulled back and looked up at him. She smoothed his hair, so much lighter now than it had been before, more blond and getting more curly the more he let it grow. "Tell me," she whispered. "Please?"

He hesitated. They'd had this conversation before they married. Tom's close-lipped, "I'll take care of everything myself" attitude was not going to work for her this time. He had to truly treat her like his partner, his other half, if their marriage was going to work. He had to confide in her and trust her strength to hold him up as much as he wanted to hold her up. He couldn't be in the marriage all by himself, she had to shoulder her half of the burden, and she wouldn't agree on a date until he agreed to let her in.

He ran his hands up and down her back. It was distracting, but Rose let him do it and focused her eyes on his face instead. "I...I don't want to tell you. It's painful."

"You were dreaming about it?" she asked.

He nodded. 

"As much as it might hurt, keeping it inside is hurting worse."

Tom considered this. There was a time he would have scoffed at it and dismissed it as emotional logic, pop-psychology that had no lasting value. But now...the way his face turned thoughtful gave Rose a flickering hope that he might let her in. Finally. 

"It was about my parents," he said softly.

Tom never talked about his parents. During their five years of living together, whenever it came up, Tom would just shrug and say that they were not alive anymore, and that he didn't want to talk about it. He even seemed to prefer it if she went and spent her holidays with her own parents, away from him. Her compromise was that she would stay until the actual day of Christmas, and then return and spend New Years with him. This seemed to be a good medium for them, but perhaps their first Christmas spent together as a family -- her, Tom, and Will -- had triggered something in him.

"I was...thirteen." So slowly, the story came out. "There were too many of us, living in a little one bedroom apartment. My dad drank, kept getting fired for coming into work drunk, which would just make him drink more. Mom just couldn't make ends meet, and I had three sisters, and a younger brother, just a baby, really. Just too many people. I would spend most of my time on the streets, crashing at a friend's, or on a park bench. Just to get away. I hated it, being poor. I wanted to help, make things better..."

He trailed off, shutting his eyes. His jaw worked. Rose reached up and kissed the quivering muscle, stroking his neck. She knew the family had died a violent death, had known it since that awful night in Tom's estate, when Ben had tried to kill her and William. But she had never known the horrid details. Not until now.

"What could I do? I was only thirteen," he said through grinding teeth. "I did whatever I could. But I was smart, smarter than the stupid people I worked for and I figured things out faster than they did...and before I knew it I'd made more enemies than friends."

"What kind of enemies?"

"The kind of enemies who kill your family to make a point," he bit out, looking at her. His eyes were piercing for a moment, as if daring her to react. But at the tears that suddenly formed in her eyes...

"They killed your entire family?"

He could only nod. After several swallows, he managed to choke out, "Because I pissed off the wrong people. And I was just a stupid kid. That's when Ben...Ben saved me. He saw potential in me." His eyes started to shine, and knowing how he would feel about crying in front of her, she pressed her face into his chest at the curve of his neck. His arms tightened about her.

"I've been dreaming," he said, his voice a bit high even though through his chest it made a deep rumble, causing a strange assonance, "about the night that it happened. How they broke in, how they killed them, one by one and made me...made me watch. But when I do...I keep seeing you and Will there, too." His fingers pressed hard into her skin, fingernails nearly breaking the surface. Rose felt a hot tear slide into her hair and warm her scalp.

"It's a dream," she said, kissing his collarbones. "It's coming up now because for the first time in years...you feel safe."

He frowned at her. She shrugged. 

"You're in a safe place, and your mind wants to deal with the trauma that's happened to you. It can, now."

"It's a very inconvenient time, Rose," he says, although there is a touch of his droll impatience there that comes whenever she says something he finds to be rather absurd. 

She bites back any suggestion that he maybe see a therapist. That won't go over well this soon. She has to wait. But there are other things she can say.

"Regardless," she says, pulling him closer. "I'm here. No matter what happens. Even if it was your fault, which I don't think it was--"

"I wouldn't have put my family in danger if I hadn't been so cocky," he grumbles.

"Your fault, not your fault, I don't care," she presses on. "I love you. I am here with you, and that is not going to change."

He looks at her, and she can see the fear in his face. "I'm afraid to tell you things sometimes, Rose," he says, his voice sound so vulnerable, so unlike him. "I'm afraid of what you'll think of me. There have been so many other things that I...I regret. I'm worried that one day I'm going to tell you the one that will make you....leave me."

She stares at him, flabbergasted. She gathers her wits to say, "Tom, there isn't anything you could tell me that would make me stop loving you. And I promise you, no matter how vicious the past is, I won't leave you. Ever again." She meets his eyes carefully as she says it. "Do you believe me?"

He nods his head, hesitantly. "But what about all those other things, Rose?" he asks. "All the other people I've made angry over the years? What if they find us?"

"Even if they do, we will endure it together. We've survived so much, Tom. You really think we can't survive a bit more?"

He seems to be turning this over in his mind. She leans closer, if that was possible.

"And you don't have to do it alone. I'm here too. To back you up, follow your play, whatever you need. I think I've proved myself pretty durable."

He gives her just the tiniest bit of a grin. "Yes, my steel Rose. I know you are." He brings his lips to hers, kisses her long but softly, slowly deepening it until she can feel some of the tension leave him. 

"I love you, Rose," he whispers against her lips. He rarely said it before. Now he says it with some kind of regularity, even if its only in quiet, private moments like this.

"I know you do," she says. How could she doubt it, knowing he chose her over... everything? "I love you too. More than anything."

He lowers them both back onto the bed, her firmly trapped in his arms, and he manages to sleep peacefully for the rest of the night.


End file.
